Cracks in the Wall of Western Bigotry?

michael

Keep on pushing and shouting, square one is still only a finger nails width away.

Derek BLADES

The LSE debate was an example of academic freedom at work. Each side put their case and those opposing a boycott won a majority. I applaud both the outcome and fact that the debate took place.

The École Normale Superieure, on the other hand, caved in to behind-the-scenes pressure from Levi, Finkielkraut and Cohen-Tanoudji. Through cowardice, ENS has stifled the ongoing debate here in France about the steps that ordinary people can take to deter Israel from its present disastrous activities in the occupied territories. We are all the poorer for it.

Oflife

Any entity built on a lie will eventually die. Even if that entity is a blood libel used to influence well meaning but pliable university students.

Truthtriumphs

I rather think that a boycott would be in Israel's interests, provided that the boycotters are forced to boycott all the innovations and discoveries pouring out of Israel.
I know which side would be the loser.

Owen Morgan

Derek BLADES: "ENS has stifled the ongoing debate here in France about the steps that ordinary people can take to deter Israel from its present disastrous activities in the occupied territories."

So Israel, according to you, is the fons et origo of all the problems in the Middle East. Is Israel trying to destroy any of its neighbours?

Derek BLADES

Oflife thinks that "Any entity built on a lie will eventually die. Even if that entity is a blood libel used to influence well meaning but pliable university students."

So, Oflife is talking about an "entity" that apparently consists of a "boodlibel" that is "built on a lie". Futhermorte Oflife believes that this curious "entity" will eventually die.

The mind boggles.

Augustus

Derek Blades - Last year in May,
in response to a radio transmission by the Israeli Navy
warning the Gaza flotilla that they were approaching a naval blockade, passengers on the Mavi Marmara responded with: "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz!" and "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11!"

And you really believe these are the good guys? Are these people really your friends?

Derek BLADES

Owen Morgan asks "Is Israel trying to destroy any of its neighbours?"

Yes it is Owen. Examples: Cast Lead in Gaza; the ongoing land theft in the West Bank designed to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state; bombing the civilian and economic infrastructure of Lebanon.

Can I help you with any other questions?

James Murphy

BLADES, mate, WHEN does YOUR mind NOT boggle? INDEED, you ARE, on THIS and OTHER Spectator BLOGS, RENOWNED for BOGGLING, yea even UNTO being A very BENCHMARK for THE vice OF BE-BOGGLEDNESS. (sorry, reading your posts is typographically contagious and makes my upper case get stuck on like yours whenever you try and write your name).

john

Couldn't come sooner. Meanwhile, a propos Israel's enemies, It would be nice, Melanie, if you were to say something about Baroness Tonge's astonishing silence in the face of the revelations about the organ-trade run out of Kosovo and involving Turkish doctors. The baroness was very quick off the mark to make allegations about Israeli doctors in Haiti.

Noa

So the long march of the the New Insurgents starts...

J D Bryan

Derek BLADE

It is very depressing when those like Derek BLADES who I assume believes in free debate thus intellectual integrity, stating what is clearly untrue. Claim Israel wishes to destroy Gaza. Thus the “bad guy” and Hamas run (terrorised) Gaza the victim thus the “good guy.”

Israel left Gaza at considerable cost/hurt to many of her people. Yet whose reward is to be subject to thousands of missile attacks as well poisonous propaganda that Hitler would have endorsed and seemingly people like Derek thus seem to endorse -or at least silent thus. That these missiles do not kill scores of civilians, as many bleat, is not for want of trying. Consider, if the power relations of Israel and Hamas/ Bin Laden et al was reversed the latter would have long mercilessly wiped out Israel. Have we not seen how these “freedom” fighters treat their Muslim “enemies”? This is the rub. If Israel was “Little Satan”, thus was of a mind, could/would destroy Hamas run Gaza and its peoples very easily. Just as America, if the Great Satan” thus was of a mind could/would destroy any enemy regime in the Mideast - in this case would not spend her blood and treasure trying to rebuild a democratic nation. Yet, both of these nations are liberal democracies thus self constrained. Though no nation is entirely beyond critique, if one honestly studied the history and present actions of Israel and Hamas it would be apparent who should be labelled evil and thus condemned without qualification and who is fighting in self defence - in stark contrast to what is happening. It would even be a category error to claim a moral equivalence between the actions of Israel (indeed, the west) with Hamas, let alone Bin Laden et al.

Just as once the defenders of the Soviet Union in the name of humanity, human progress, Derek you do a great disservice to the people of the Mideast, let alone Israelis, by demonizing Israel, the only free society, a western liberal democracy, in the region. The only regional model for which all regimes in this sad region should learn thus, if the MidEast is to progress in the 21st century.

cityca

I read about the LSE debate over at Harry's Place and have been wondering if the law should not be doing something about Mundy's threat of physical violence to Jonathan Arkush.

Why should she be any less liable to arrest for threatening behaviour, than a yob in the street?

rudolph camillo

Melanie, as a long time follower of your column, i am not sure that what i'm going to say is relevant to your last column,But i think it might be relevant to your long time apprehension of the decline in western morality, and it concerns the recent news of the Arizona shootings,and in particular, the death of Christina-Taylor Green. My point is this ..what is a 9 yr old girl doing, at her own request, at a political gathering of any party, for that matter? Surely at that age she should be playing with her friends and enjoying her childhood. That her parents or mentors or her school teachers, should be encouraging her to an interest in politics at that age, [apparently she was president, or something, of her class political group ]is completely irresponsible. The whole thing is delusional fantasy,transmuting to farce, morphing into tradgedy, for this poor little girl. This however is what is regarded as normal in the USA, where i have been going intermittently for the last 20 yrs, and i have spoken to adults about this incident, and they consider this as normal despite the fact that a large proportion of American students leave school functionally illiterate. Politics at 9 years old ? This to me is appalling, as is the political capital made by the chief delusionist pres Barack Obama. American adults should hang their head in shame.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "“Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases, history and religion. This serves your honour. God is with you” :God will defeat these tyrants and will help us to win, together with our allies the Germans and Japanese. We will have an independent Arab state in which no trace of Jewry will be found.”"

Yes, Derek, you guessed it: Palestinian leadership's exhortation years before the "settlements", Cast Lead, the war of '73..the war of '67...and, yes, before the state of israel existed.

You are nothing but a colluder in the Jew hatred which is the very lynchpin of opposition to Israeli policies.

You cannot buy into the religious sanctifcation of violence and genocidal mania and then beg the Jewish state for mercy.

There SHOULD not be peace between moslem and Jew whislt this legitimation of extermination persists. In the circumstances, the Arabs and moslems have so far been very fortunate...but time is running out. Jewish radicalism is on the rise...and just as the rise of so-called Jewish "terrorism" grew, as British policy during the Mandate became more openly anti semitic, so too Jewish radicalism will increase and the settler movement as Jihadism becomes cemented even in the Western lib-left mindset, helped in no small measure by people in authority like Carter, Obama and Tutu.

Be careful. Time is running out. Islamism and its reinforcement by jerks like you will, in the end, cause a whirlwind which you will almost certainly not survive to regret. That you are on this path so willingly is tragedy which is hard to express in words.

Derek BLADES

Augustus gives us this astonishing news: “Last year in May, in response to a radio transmission by the Israeli Navy warning the Gaza flotilla that they were approaching a naval blockade, passengers on the Mavi Marmara responded with: ‘Shut up, go back to Auschwitz!’ and ‘We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11!’

Augustus does not tell us where he got this frankly unbelievable information from but it looks like another part of the mythology now being constructed to excuse the deaths of the unarmed passengers on the peace convoy whose aim was to relieve Ghetto Gaza.

An earlier example was the story about the IDF attacker who was alleged to have been disembowelled before being thrown into the sea. He miraculously survived - possibly with the aid of the world's first bowel transplant

AY

rudolph camillo -
You exaggerate. The girl was there with parents, it is a shopping mall - toys, ice-cream and so on.

Abou "cracks" - ..it won't go fast enough unless there is a robust pro-civilization political movement. In Europe, there are already parties lead by Wilders, Strache, Stadkewitz, and others. Britain is lagging behind.

John,

All power to you John Roosevelt. I may add that no-one says a word about China annexing parts of Northern India after its unprovoked and short scuffle with India, nor about the annexation of Tibet and East Turkestan, (Xinjiang), nor about the annexation of Eastern Greece by Turkey after the Great Wsr, nor about the annexation of Eastern Prussia by Poland, half of Finland by Russia, or of Eastern Poland by Russia, all after the 2nd World War. Yet Israel is attacked on all sides because of settlements in land occupied after yet another unprovoked attack by its neighbours. Far from regretting such settlements it should hurry up and annex the West Bank, to which it has just as much right, if not more, as the examples that I have mentioned. In any case the West Bank is but a small part of Ottoman Palestine, the whole of which was originally promised as a homeland for the Jews.

AY

Derek on "..unarmed passengers.."

Imagine that you are passing some dark corner in the city, - and suddenly see twenty something people brandishing axes, iron bars, knives, slingshots and basball bats - would you consider them "unarmed"?

Augustus

Derek Blades, Jan 15th, 10.55am-

"Augustus does not tell us where he got this..."

israelnationalnews.com dated 6th June, 2010. The radio broadcast is clearly distinguishable on YouTube.

What is also a fact is that the
Mavi Marmara ship's terror activists brutally assaulted the Navy commandos before they were able to defend themselves.
Derek, please don't try and make excuses for them, they were not unarmed; 'passengers grabbed weapons from soldiers including three handguns and an Uzi submachine gun.' When the soldiers fired back most of the shots were warning shots.

Most of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara were from the Turkish terrorist group IHH. They were the only ones to attack the Israelis, they are the ones you defend and nail your colours to the mast to.
Perhaps only you can explain where your 'Western Bigotry' comes from.

Joshua

"the odious John Chalcraft"

To put it mildly. Here's Chalcraft on why it's OK to single out Israel:

"It is not clear that there are other heavily militarised, nuclear-armed, expansionist apartheid states with extensive illegal settlement, land seizure and wall-building activity."

http://tinyurl.com/4rpen3x

Derek

Derek BLADES

asks "Can I help you with any other questions?".

Well, yes, Mr. Blades, when you speak about the "ongoing land theft in the West Bank...", there are:

Which specific pieces of land are you referring to?

Who,specifically, were those pieces of land owned by before they were stolen?

Under what law did the former owners hold title to the stolen land?

Who owns those pieces of land now?

What is the specific law which made the acquisition of those pieces of land by "Israel" theft?

I am sure you will welcome the opportunity to give chapter and verse, since as you will agree such allegations are not to be made lightly or without careful consideration of the facts

Ian Hills

Tea Party movement, English Defence League...and now these developments. Yes, there DOES seem to be a growing backlash against left wing/islamic lies and terror. And not before time!

Gerry Gee

Melanie, you've provided links to Chalcraft but is it possible to find a transcript of Professor Daniel Hochhauser's speech in the debate?

Mati Bloch

Melanie, I read with interest your column. Also the readers' posts. Still, I am not sure as to meaningful "cracks" in the wall of bigotry.
To me, an Israeli, the attitude of the academia as well as the press in the UK toward Israel is incomprehensible and astonishing.
Siding with the overpowering Muslim world, where there is very little regard to human rights or democracy against Israel, the single real democracy in the Middle East seem so blatantly skewed in favor of the bullies. It is remindful of chamberlain's collusion with the Nazi regime, requesting of Czechoslovakia to disarm at the onset of the II WW
Your voice is precious and brave. I was also pleasantly surprised by the grasp and understanding shown by many commenters, such as "Derek"s in response to another "Derek BLADES" comments.

Derek BLADES

Augustus

So, "terror activists" is now added to the Mavi Marmara mythology.

Is somebody feeding you this stuff or do you make it up yourself?

Derek BLADES

@ Mr Derek

International humanitarian law prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Fourth Geneva Convention, article 49).

The Hague Regulations prohibit the occupying power [from undertaking] permanent changes in the occupied area, unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.

The establishment of the settlements leads to the violation of the rights of the Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe on the rights to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.

Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more than fifty percent of the land in the West Bank. This land has been used mainly to establish settlements and create reserves of land for the future expansion of the settlements.

Israel uses the seized lands to benefit the settlements, while prohibiting the Palestinian public from using them in any way. This use is forbidden and illegal in itself. As the occupier in the Occupied Territories, Israel is not permitted to ignore the needs of an entire population and to use land intended for public needs solely to benefit the settlers.

Land theft is what it is Derek. That is why every country, including the United States,the United Nations and the European Union label the settlements as illegal.

Does that answer your question.

Mr. Mabutoh Afunfa

Israel is a good civilize country the evil leftist don't know what they're missing!.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: At the very least, your cock sureness about the leagilties re the West Bank, as I have mentioned, is, perhaps, misplaced:

"The clause most cited to say that Israeli settlements are illegal is an article in the 4th Geneva Convention, signed just after World War II, that says: “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”

On its face, it seems clear how this can be read to prohibit Israeli settlement of its civilians in the territories.

On the one hand, though, it doesn’t however say anything about military installations. That means that even if it says that civilian settlement in the territories is illegal, this clause does not say that it’s illegal for the IDF to set up military buildings, housing all the necessary people there to keep those installations running.

More importantly, a fair reading of the context in which this particular provision was crafted seems to make clear to me that it refers only to involuntary transfers. In other words, to a government moving people into the conquered territory against their will. It was related to specific actions taken by the Nazis – their forcible transfer of ethnic Germans in lands they conquered elsewhere, and their forcible transfer of Jews in Germany to camps – that bear no resemblance to the Israeli settlement enterprise.

So, as was the case with Resolution 242, a deeper consideration of both the language in question and the context in which it was crafted and implemented transform a surface conclusion into at least a debatable manner. Which of course means that, at a minimum, the question of whether or not Israeli control of or settlement in the territories is “illegal” is unsettled. Which means that fair-minded observers should reject the casual depiction of these realities as illegal.

The other very large problem about this notion is that it in the first place assumes that Jews – and only Jews, not say Israeli citizens, which of course includes many non-Jews – have no right to live on the far side of the 1949 lines. This is a very large problem because these include areas, like the entire old cities of Jerusalem and Hebron, that were populated by Jews for thousands of years before those Jews were killed or forcibly removed and the areas they lived in, including their holy sites, destroyed and vandalized, in the first case in 1948, in the second in 1929. To say that the Jewish state must now acquiesce to the permanent removal of Jews from those areas (irrespective of the question of whether or not Israel need exercise sovereign control) doesn’t seem to me to be a strong grounding for a just international legal system, to say the least.

And that gets us to maybe the biggest problem we face with the casual description of international law that many people use, as well as the incessant focus of international bodies and human rights organizations on Israel to the near exclusion of all else: It undermines the basic principle of international law.

A system applied in this way – capriciously, without intellectually honest references to foundational texts, as a tool to batter the Jewish state for reasons that have very little do with anyone’s notions of international law, without recognizing the currently shaky foundations upon which the international legal system rests – does more than anything else to undermine the confidence on the part of nations and individuals in that an objective, serious international legal system is possible and desirable. As I’ve already mentioned, and I think should be beyond dispute, such a system rests firmly only on the consent of the vast majority of the people who live under its jurisdiction. And why would anyone want to willingly grant authority over some of the most important aspects of their lives to bodies that twist the law to suit moral fashions?

So, there are very large questions regarding what international does or does not say about Israel’s control of the territories, and there is no suitable forum at the moment for deciding what it says. Pretending otherwise is a serious blow to the creation of a just international order, in which all states and all peoples can live in the same warm embrace of the rule of law that we enjoy in America.

What generally happens in discussions of international law and Israel is that everyone makes the wrong assumption – that there is an international legal system like the system we have in democratic countries – and then debates what the implications of the laws that system has created are. For example, there was and is a very strenuous debate over the 2nd Amendment. There was a very important case on this matter that was decided by the Supreme Court over the summer. And immediately following the decision, the debate began. Does the decision invalidate this law or that law, or not? What are the new limits people must abide by? How can states that have laws that now contravene this decision change them to make them suit it? And so on. And the same thing happens just about every time the Supreme Court makes a decision, just most of the time people like me don’t know about it or why it matters.

And those Supreme Court decisions matter because whether or not we agree with them, we all agree that they do in fact constitute practically the last word on what the law is. Ultimately of course those decisions are backed up by the force of the police and even the military. Only 50 years ago we saw dramatically in this country that this is so, when President Eisenhower used the Armed Forces to enforce a Supreme Court decision in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is an important issue, and I want to return to it later.

But what makes the system of law work so well in the United States is that force is nearly always unnecessary, because we all agree that the Supreme Court has the authority, basically and near ultimately, to determine what is legal and what is not. Now we debate very strongly whether or not the decisions they make are correct, and these debates get very hot and will likely only get hotter. But they are so hot precisely because we all agree that even when we think the Court has gotten something completely wrong, they have the authority to be wrong, and we all have to go along with it until or unless we can change the Constitution or get the Court to rule on the matter again and change their mind.

This to me was the big lesson of Bush v. Gore. [The Supreme Court case which ended the 2000 Presidential election.] Forget about the intricacies of the argument. Forget about whether the Court at the time got it right or wrong. What was important, what really mattered, was that the entire country went along with the decision, whatever they felt about its merits, because they recognized the power of the Supreme Court to say what is legal and what isn’t, even for such a weighty matter as who the president will be.

And even beyond that there is a recourse. Power rests not with the credentialed determiners of law who sit on the Supreme Court. Not ultimately. That power rests with the people, “We the people,” who wrote the Constitution that the Supreme Court bases its decisions on. And if the people don’t like what the Supreme Court has to say, well, they can get elect leaders who will put people there who will say what they want it to say, and they can change the Constitution to make clear that it says what they want it to say.

That natural foundation for law – on the people as sovereign, as the ultimate locus of power – is what makes the American legal system so strong and so wonderful.

We can’t say any of the same things about international law because it lacks some of the basic attributes of a national legal system, and this lack is very important when thinking about what exactly international law has to say about all kinds of matters, the situation in the territories included.

It lacks:

A system for determining what is legal and what is not. There is no system that has been put in place that is designed to and has the authority to play the same role that the Supreme Court plays in the US.
An effective enforcement arm. There are of course UN peacekeepers, but, and I think this is in many if not most cases a sad thing, they are known for their ineffectiveness as opposed to their effectiveness. This is something that Israelis have come to understand well, whether in the case of the UN monitoring force that was put in Sinai to serve as a buffer between Egypt and Israel after the 1956 war or UNIFIL in Lebanon which has watched almost entirely mutely as Hezbollah has rearmed since 2006 far beyond what they had before the war the group fought with Israel that year. UNIFIL was in fact placed there specifically to disarm Hezbollah, so the failure has been even more stark. It’s also been true in other cases as well, such as the capitulation of the UN forces in Rwanda in the face of the genocidaires in 1994.
Perhaps most importantly, the consent of the governed. As I said earlier, maybe the most important thing about the system of law in the US and other established democracies is that it is respected by nearly the entire citizenry. Needless to say we have nowhere near the same case as regards many facets of international law, where governments have not signed on to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court. Even when governments have signed on to specific agreements, it is a stretch to say that the governments see them as truly binding beyond what they perceive to be their own interests. And certainly far too much to say that individuals agree with the authority of international bodies. In the US, opposition even to membership in the United Nations remains a minority but strong position in certain sectors. John McCain even floated the idea of quitting the UN to establish a competing boding of democracies as recently as the 2008 election.
All this means that international law is not a system of law like we are used to in the US. Which means it makes no sense – it is to me an illicit intellectual move – to portray international law as settled, “facts,” when it is not.

There are agreements (chief in importance in my mind being the Geneva Accords, the NPT, and the charter of the UN) but the interpretation of those agreements is not settled, because there is no one with the authority to say, as in the case of the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment: This is what the text means. Now go deal with it.

So at best we have a system of competing interpretations. And there is no way to say whose interpretation beats another interpretation. The best you can do is get a UN Security Council resolution, which, since UN General Assembly resolutions have been thoroughly discredited (this was not always the case. The General Assembly resolution on Palestine was thought in its day to be a very big deal, and for some years after that the press in the US treated the decisions the GA made as weighty, kind of like how they cover the G7 today) seems to me to have achieved a kind of gold standard quality in international law. And even that of course then becomes the topic of competing interpretations, again with no one to decide which is right or wrong, because no one agrees who gets to say what “the law” is. And even if you could do that, there is no way to enforce the law if it’s not followed. And even if you could do that, the people the law is directed at, in not accepting the law as binding, would make impossible the creation of a binding rule of law that would benefit all people.

So, as regards international law and the status of the West Bank and other territories controlled by Israel but not annexed to the country, the chief important document seems to be UNSC resolution 242. And you will find people who will say that this is unequivocal proof that Israel’s control of the territories is illegal. And you’ll find others who say it says no such thing.

If you actually read the document (which is quite short), you will see that it calls both for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” and “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

On the one hand it is easy to see how this language is read to mean that Israel must immediately quit all territories beyond the 1967 lines. But a crucial word is missing, and that is the word “the.” It is no accident that the word is missing – its absence was the result of months of negotiations, and found its way into the text through a recognition by the people who wrote it that Israel’s exact boundaries from 1949-1967 were untenable over the long-term and adjustments would have to be made.

Taken in tandem with the second clause I cited, which calls for states to be free “from threats or acts of force,” it is not hard to argue that Israel, in returning 90% of the territory it won in 1967 when it gave the Sinai back to Egypt is fully in accord with the resolution while neighboring Arab states like Syrian and Lebanon are not, due to their housing of terrorist groups directed against Israel on their soil.

This is in fact the exact argument that Eugene Rostow, the undersecretary of state for the United States in 1967, who was intimately involved in writing the resolution, made in 1991. Rostow felt the case was so good that the text was not at all “ambiguous” or open to interpretation.

And personally, I agree with him. I don’t think the resolution is ambiguous. I don’t think it makes Israel’s presence in the territories “illegal,” and it does appear that Israel has done more to fill the terms directed at it than Arab states have done to fill the terms directed at them. The refusal by most Arab states to grant even the point that Israel has a right to not be physically attacked puts them much more in breach of the language of this resolution than Israel is.

But of course it doesn’t really matter if I say it’s ambiguous or not. And it also didn’t matter that Rostow said it, and he was certainly much more important than I am. And it also doesn’t matter if my fellow panelists disagree and say no it says clearly that the resolution says that Israel’s continued control of the West Bank and Golan are illegal. Because there is no forum for us to decide these matters. There’s no body that can say, as a final matter, this is how it is, and then we’ll know that everyone will abide by that decision. And that of course is my point.

And that gets us to maybe the biggest problem we face with the casual description of international law that many people use, as well as the incessant focus of international bodies and human rights organizations on Israel to the near exclusion of all else: It undermines the basic principal of international law.

A system applied in this way – capriciously, without intellectually honest references to foundational texts, as a tool to batter the Jewish state for reasons that have very little do with anyone’s notions of international law, without recognizing the currently shaky foundations upon which the international legal system rests – does more than anything else to undermine the confidence on the part of nations and individuals in that an objective, serious international legal system is possible and desirable. As I’ve already mentioned, and I think should be beyond dispute, such a system rests firmly only on the consent of the vast majority of the people who live under its jurisdiction. And why would anyone want to willingly grant authority over some of the most important aspects of their lives to bodies that twist the law to suit moral fashions?

So, there are very large questions regarding what international does or does not say about Israel’s control of the territories, and there is no suitable forum at the moment for deciding what it says. Pretending otherwise is a serious blow to the creation of a just international order, in which all states and all peoples can live in the same warm embrace of the rule of law that we enjoy in America."

C.Gee

"The establishment of the settlements leads to the violation of the rights of the Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe on the rights to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement."

Where did you shop for all these delightful rights? And are they cheaper in bulk?

Derek

Derek BLADES

"Does that answer your question [sic]."

No.

Mustapha Bunn

John Roosevelt,Jan.16th. @ 3.13 ...U.N.forces in Rwanda didn't 'capitulate'.They were never given the opportunity to take any action whatsoever from day one.
Australian infantry were "armed" with a few rounds per man purely for self defence on the express orders of the suits in the United Nations. Because of this Australian servicemen were forced to stand by and watch as women and children were hacked to death.
I,personally, know of at least one ex soldier who was present who still bears the physological scars to this day.I am quite sure there are many more.

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT

That chunk of special pleading ends with this piece of patent nonsense:

"So, there are very large questions regarding what international (sic) does or does not say about Israel’s control of the territories, and there is no suitable forum at the moment for deciding what it says."

The International Court of Justice is the suitable forum in which the legal situation of the occupied territories has been resolved. No country in the world, except Israel, believes that there is any quesion but that the settlements are illegal.

Please stop making yourself look silly.

Okey

No, Derek Blades, "countries" which "say" that the '"settlements" are "illegal" are being disingenuous.
Other "countries" claim, (wrongly), that the "settlements" are not illegal, but that they constitute an"obstacle to peace."
There is only one obstacle to peace, namely the refusal of the Arab regimes and peoples to recognise Jewish rights in The Land of Israel.

Derek BLADES

Okey tells us that the illegal settlements in the occupied territories are not an "obstacle to peace." Not even a teensy weensy obstacle Pokey? The Palestinians think they are and so do the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. But Dokey knows better!

Augustus

Derek Blades - When Israel went into battle in June 1967 (the Six-Day War) it faced a pan-Arab threat to its existence. Following its victory it assumed that the nature of its victory would shock the Arab world into coming to terms with
that victory and make peace. But this was not to be. At the end of August 1967 the heads of eight Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan (all of which lost land as a result of their failed policy of confrontation with Israel), met at a summit in Khartoum, Sudan,
and agreed to three principles that were to guide Arab post-war
policy: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. Though many in Israel hoped to trade conquered lands for peace,
they would have no takers and so the stage was set for decades
of Israel's control of these territories.

Over time there was little dispute over Egypt's sovereign right to the Sinai, and when its president Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel it was returned. But the question of the legal status of the West Bank and Jerusalem is not so easily resolved. Firstly, at no point in history has Jerusalem or the West Bank been under Palestinian Arab sovereignty in any sense of the term. After 1967 Israel was operating in a legal vacuum visa vi the West Bank, and this was exacerbated by Jordan's subsequent stubborn refusal to engage in talks about the future of this territory because, initially, King Hussein was deterred from dealing with the issue due to those three 'nos' at Khartoum.
But soon enough he was taught a
real world lesson by the PLO which fomented a bloody civil war against him in 1970, and with the open support and help of Israel he survived the threat to his throne. Eventually
he disavowed any claims to the land he had lost in 1967 in July 1988. So, if the charge that Israel holds territory illegally is based on a charge of theft from previous owners, Jordan's own legitimacy on matters of legal title makes that case a losing one.

When you, and people like you, assert that the settlement comunities, or the expansion of ones already in place, are not merely acts of bad faith
to a solution to the Arab-Israel
conflict, but a violation of international law, you only escalate the debate over their existence from a dispute about policy into one in which the Jewish state itself can be labelled as an international outlaw. In so doing, the ultimate aim of such an argument to delegitimize the settlements is clear - It's the same argument used by Israel's enemies to delegitimize the State of Israel entirely. Those that advance these specious arguments will, if such a situation arose, not be able to resist the logic of an argument which would falsely use international law to claim that
Israel is illegitimate.

Si, N

Augustus says:

'[l]ast year in May,
in response to a radio transmission by the Israeli Navy
warning the Gaza flotilla that they were approaching a naval blockade, passengers on the Mavi Marmara responded with: "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz!" and "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11!"'...

...thing is, Max Blumenthal exposed this as a lie - of course the 'IDF' then retracted its lies and attempted to claim that the vile utterances came not from the Mavi Marmara, but from elsewhere within the flotilla - then it changed its story again. Nothing emanating from the 'IDF' is of value to truth tellers.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 16th, 2011 3:13pm
This shows impressive diligence. Can I ask whether it is all your own work, or do you have a source? I know there are learned international jurists in Israel, the UK, and US who argue Israel's case. Do you know if they would use arguments such as yours?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen
January 17th, 2011 4:13pm
JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 16th, 2011 3:13pm
"This shows impressive diligence. Can I ask whether it is all your own work, or do you have a source? I know there are learned international jurists in Israel, the UK, and US who argue Israel's case. Do you know if they would use arguments such as yours?"

Well, I dont think it was your work, Herzen, was it. Clearly we should not be sourcing Islamic jurists on this one...My sources, actually, are all Black, 7th Day Adventist Jurists...Why, would it make a difference to you?

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 17th, 2011 5:06pm
I was interested whether the arguments were from someone versed in the law. It is not a subject where anyone's opinion is as good as anyone else's.

C.Gee

Si, N:

The IDF admitted to removing incomprehensible noises and silences from the tapes. They also clarified that the anti-semitic statements did not come from the MM but another ship. Edited and unedited versions of the tapes are available. The anti-semitic statements stand, notwithstanding the claims by one of the flotilla leaders that they were made on another occasion.
The IDF also changed a headline on the flotilla incident to remove the conclusive linking of the militants on the MM to Al Qaida. The evidence did not point to Al Qaida as such, only to organized militant planning.
The propaganda from pro-Palestinian activists remains unclarified and unedited, even when facts giving it the lie are established. Does clinging to a lie through thick and thin, without budging an inch, ever, with nary an um or an ah, make it into the truth? It would appear so.

Okey

Derek Blades, you still naively think that just because the US, UN, EU, Russia et al SAY that the "settlements" are an obstacle to peace, the personnel of these political entities ACTUALLY believe what they publicly proclaim.
Haven't you learnt that diplomacy is an art where doublespeak, newspeak, UNspeak, EUspeak etc are continuously applied, particularly when there is motivation to deny Jewish rights?

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT

So, your source for what must be one of the longest posts on record was the 7th Day Adventists? That would be the good folk that brought us the Waco massacre. Call me naive if you wish, but in a stand-off between the International Court of Justice and the 7th Day Adventists my hunch is that the former have probably got it right.

Incidentally, why did you describe the 7th Day Adventist jurists as "Black"? Were you refering to their skin colour and, if so, why on earth is that relevant. I grant you that some dark skinned jurists are exceptionally bright - Mr. and Mrs. Obama for example - but I don't think there is any general rule.

Mailman

You know its a funny thing really. This is slightly off topic, but relevant never the less.

Not long ago I went and saw the Hairy Bikers and one of the people they got up worked for some Israeli bank in London. When he mentioned he was working for an Israeli bank he actually got chaired by the crowd :)

Keep in mind that this was the university town of Cambridge...so clearly not all lecturers and students are lefty idiots...unless of course all the lecturers and students were plotting the downfall of Western society in some dark dingy bar? :)

Regards

Mailman

Derek BLADES

Okey thinks I am naïve. He explains that although some political entities "SAY that the "settlements" are an obstacle to peace, the personnel of these political entities [do not] ACTUALLY believe what they publicly proclaim."

The trouble with your line of reasoning, Okey, is that the Palestinians SAID that continued building of settlements would halt the peace talks and they ACTUALLY meant it.

Netanyahu knew that they meant what they said and authorised renewed building activity deliberately to scupper the peace talks.

Come on Dokey. Admit that, as a rough working hypothesis, the settlements might just possibly constitute a miniscule, teensy weenie obstacle to peace. Show me you are not naive.

Gary

Also, the whole "stopping construction" is such a farce from the arab side.
for tens of years no one said ANYTHING, once they stopped it for 9 months for the peace prorcess to begin, they (arabs, and idiots like you) start demanding it, and sticking to that issue.
That's not really for debate, wether or not israel should continue building buildings, you can debate it all you want, Israel could care less, it's not for you or anyone to decide, not for people inside of Israel, and definitely not people from the outside. Feel free to talk about it, it's not going to happen.

Andy Gill

Cracks in the wall of bigotry? Too early to say, but the more people see of Islamic culture the less they like it, and the more they sympathize with Israel.

Herzen

C.Gee
January 17th, 2011 9:39pm
In a prior recording, the Israeli sailor warning off the flotilla elicited no responses. The second recording included the infamous comments and a brief statement from someone on one of the smaller vessels. The third version included a longer statement by the person from the other vessel, not radio silence or incomprehensible noise. The sailor is seen to move in the original footage. In the revised and revised revised versions he appears mysteriously to be replaced with a still photograph for the duration of the infamous comments. The comments themselves are reported to be made in comic imitations of accents. The comments refer to "the Arabs" where anyone other than Israelis would be expected to speak of "Palestinians".

I do not know what happened, but there is reason to doubt the IDF, whose statements you appear to take at face value (although you garble them somewhat). Is this the same level of evidence allowed you to defend the credibility of the bizarre story of disembowelling? a level of evidence that allows you to accept everything the Israeli authorities say and nothing that contradicts what they say.

Okey

Derek Blades, you have forgotten to mention that the "Palestinians" ALSO say that they will never recognise the Jewish right to a nation-state. In fact, the PLO has never definitively renounced its Charter clause calling for the destruction of Israel.
Their "education" system and their media continuously prime their people not for peace, but for shedding Jewish blood.
Derek,even the late Yasser Arafat continued to go through the motions of "negotiations" with Israel while intensive construction of Jewish communities was proceeding in Judea and Samaria.
The "Palestinians" witnessed Ariel Sharon's destruction of "settlements", so they know that this could be replicated.
What the "Palestinians", however, have not yet managed to convince you of is that they will always find some excuse to avoid accepting that Jews have national rights in The Land of Israel.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: "Herzen
January 17th, 2011 8:22pm
JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 17th, 2011 5:06pm
I was interested whether the arguments were from someone versed in the law. It is not a subject where anyone's opinion is as good as anyone else's."

You can say that again.

For sure, itwasn't the view of Haj Amin Husseini or Hassan al Banna. Nor that of Yusuf Al Qaradawi...which, I guess, begs the question: what Law would apply for guys like Blades?

They, like the fundamentalists, seem very fond of International Law, when it comes to Jew bashing (sorry, Israel bashing) but do they recognise it, anyway? Certainly, they don't when it comes to bashing Hizbollah, for example, and its blatant contravention of Sec Council Res. 1701.

I guess it's all meaningless, anyway, except in terms of the propaganda war, right?..and they dont want peace, anyway...so it really is only of concern in terms of tactics in the ongoing war...

Derek BLADES

John Roosevelt. You speak of "the ongoing war." The war is "ongoing" because Netanyahu has deliberately torpedoed the peace talks by aurhorising an acceleration of settlement building - which is why the Labour Party has withdrawn from the coalition government.

From earlier comments I gather that you rather favour making the war "ongoing". My guess is that you do not, yourself, live in the "onging-war-zone" but have sensibly opted for somewhere more relaxing. Gung-ho whackoes mostly keep away from the action.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 18th, 2011 4:29pm

...so, was it all your own work? It isn't obvious from what you have said.

Okey

Derek Blades, I see that you have not yet marshalled sufficient rationalisations and sophistries to try to rebut my most recent post.
Also, your consistent admissions that you "guess" and "gather"lead me to deduce that these are your preferred methods of cognition; hence your constant errors.

John Edwards

Derek Blades is as usual a shining beacon of reason. I greatly admire his sheer stamina.

benjamin

To get back to Ms Phillips original comment praising the banning of the debate in France and the results of the debate in England, it seems to me that she shows signs of double standards. She has consistently complained in the past that in Europe debate about Islamification is stifled, far-right racists types are not allowed to air their ideas etc. Yet here, she is happy to have the debate in Paris banned, because some of the speakers are not to her liking. They are not to my liking either, but I think Ms. Phillips wants her bread buttered on both sides.

CD

I'm not sure these are cracks in bigotry.

In the Middle East, the West ostensibly supports autoritarian non-democratic Islamic nations who have declared they don't want to make peace over democratic Israel who wants to make peace.

In South Asia, America has historically supported Pakistan which is an undemocratic Islamic nation harbouring terrorists over democratic India.

Is it that Western governments prefer pliable undemocratic governments in far off nations? For their self interest?

So changes (or cracks) occur when the source of their self interest changes (as America is tending more towards India now).

Si, N

John Edwards:

'Derek Blades is as usual a shining beacon of reason. I greatly admire his sheer stamina'.

Seconded - more power to your elbow Derek.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Hezen: are you Jewish?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "John Roosevelt. You speak of "the ongoing war." The war is "ongoing" because Netanyahu has deliberately torpedoed the peace talks by aurhorising an acceleration of settlement building - which is why the Labour Party has withdrawn from the coalition government."

Crap. The war has been ongoing as I'ver said to you on seemingly myriad occasions, since before '47, when Arabs had Jews in their sites, in case they became israeli (I guess).

"From earlier comments I gather that you rather favour making the war "ongoing". My guess is that you do not, yourself, live in the "onging-war-zone" but have sensibly opted for somewhere more relaxing. Gung-ho whackoes mostly keep away from the action."

Dont persist in being a presumptuous schmuck about where I live and my experience of war..but, yes, against Islamism I am all for war.
How did you guess?

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 19th, 2011 5:14pm
Hezen: are you Jewish?

?

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT.

It is certainly true that you have told me before how the Arabs have, from the start, been hostile to the Zionist project of taking a chunk of their territory to establish a home for what they saw as a bunch of colonisers from the West. That is a good point and I thank you for reminding me of it, but it has precious little to do with my comment that upset you. To recall, this was that Netanyahu has deliberately torpedoed the peace talks because he doe not want peace with the Palestinians in the occupied territories and as a member of the war party you approve of Netanyahu’s policy. But I still find it interesting that you yourself live well away from the scene of the action. I am not accusing you of cowardice as I am sure you have a good reason – family ties, professional interest, an amorous entanglement – who knows – for staying clear of the ongoing-war zone.

I am not sure what a schmuck is but it sounds nasty and I am sorry that you see me as one. Particularly as I was being genuinely solicitous for your health in suggesting you get professional help for your condition.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "To recall, this was that Netanyahu has deliberately torpedoed the peace talks because he doe not want peace with the Palestinians in the occupied territories and as a member of the war party you approve of Netanyahu’s policy. But I still find it interesting that you yourself live well away from the scene of the action. I am not accusing you of cowardice as I am sure you have a good reason – family ties, professional interest, an amorous entanglement – who knows – for staying clear of the ongoing-war zone."

Dearest Derek (aka "Schmuck"): you presume too much, as always, but even if I had a penthouse in Gaza City I will always be for war against Islamism. Diplomacy is a dead letter with the those who would stone women, sanction murder of innocents (all be they infidels), would murder gays, suppress freedom of speech in short the kind of racist totalitarianism we fought Hitler to stop.
It is irrelevant whether or not I support Netanyahu. I certainly do not think Israel is responsible for no peace and I certainly dont think the so-called "occupation" - defined in terms of the West Bank and/or Jerusalem - is the impediment you make it out to be. I think Hamas is murderous and would start a civil war - a hot one - if Abbas agreed even to a peace based on total withdrawal for the West Bank, and East jerusalem (which, we know, he wont). I dont trust Hamas or Abbas and certainly dont think enough of the Islamists - wherever they skulk - would support that peace either.

So, stop that line of twaddle, please. You know as well as anyone, that you all predicate peace on your desire for israel not to exist - hence your insistence on the Law Return - the swaming of Israel.

In the circumstances, I personally think Netanyahu has been too lenient with those who murder the Jews...and I, with those who would support - directly or indirectly - their murder merely by calling them "schmuck".

"I am not sure what a schmuck is"

...and I took you for a man of the world...

" but it sounds nasty and I am sorry that you see me as one. Particularly as I was being genuinely solicitous for your health in suggesting you get professional help for your condition."

Oh dear..this is the sum total of your responses to my posts.so very acerbic..Golden Globes MC next year, perhaps?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Okey: it is indeed telling that neither Derek Blades nor any of his acolytes seem to have mustered enough intellectual energy to respond to your comments. Wow, now that's a surprise, innit?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "It is certainly true that you have told me before how the Arabs have, from the start, been hostile to the Zionist project of taking a chunk of their territory to establish a home for what they saw as a bunch of colonisers from the West. That is a good point and I thank you for reminding me of it, but it has precious little to do with my comment that upset you."

Clearly, dear Derek, you have misread both your own post and mine. It has, contrary to what you say above, EVERYTHING with your comment..and EVERYTHING to do with underscoring what a perciously disingenuous disputer you are.

The fact that the Palestinian aganda has not changed at all - in terms of core aims - since at least 1922 is the very reason why Israel has NO choice (unless foreign policy-making is coopted by the Board of Haaretz) but to keep fighting in the best way it deems fit.

What of course is totally untrue is that if only Netanyahu froz the settlemnt building and even abandoned all settlements, the road to peace would be unblocked as you love to imply.

Like so many Islamists, you seem to think lying is sanctioned by God. Mmm..not by my God..

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: "?"

Sorry, was just hoping you would know what a "schmuck" was...and then you could pass on the info to Derek Blades. You seem such kindred spirits.

CW

A recent report said that municipal services eg sewage, rubbish collection stop at the boundary of Arab-occupied housing in Lod.

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT told his chum Okey Dokey "..it is indeed telling that neither Derek Blades nor any of his acolytes seem to have mustered enough intellectual energy to respond to your comments. Wow, now that's a surprise, innit?

Responding to Okey Snookey took no time at all and zero intellectual energy. I gave him the answer he was looking for but one of Melanie's handlers refused to post it.

This happened to me once before and I withdrew my custom for a week. This time I am declaring a two-week strike. That should teach them a lesson.

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 20th, 2011 2:03pm
The quality of your legal disquisition argues for your authorship; your coyness argues for your having borrowed it. I'm no nearer knowing which. If there is some authority whose work you have lifted (a perfectly reasonable thing to do) but have perhaps misrepresented in the transcription, I would be grateful for the reference. It is always best to know the strongest arguments for a particular position. Thank you.

David

Herzen
January 20th, 2011 2:03pm
The quality of your legal disquisition argues for your authorship; your coyness argues for your having borrowed

Not his own work. Just put a few chunks into google to fine the source.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: Tap dancing, are you, Herzen. Be careful, you will get dizzy.

You do seem obsessed with the name of sources, Herzen, rather than content. I wonder why? Avoiding answering the points made by those who take you to task seems the MO of the Palestinianistas.

Just respond to the legal disputation and, if you feel that the mere fact of the source not being revealed, undermines the argument, please tell us how. I don't mind if the response you make is yours or anyone else's - Harold's, Dear Derek's etc.I will simply examine it on its merits.

I am curious why you lot never respond to points made - head on. There is no attempt at serious counterargument. You all prefer the demonisation path. You think it helpful, intelligent? It's complete twaddle and you are masters of it.

C Gee, of course, landed you all a mortal blow in his recent post on the subject of the Left. The silence which has ensued is very telling. It reminds me of that feeling in the mortuary, after the battle is won... an awful sense of tragedy and nothingness...stillness..

Herzen

JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 21st, 2011 8:01am
I was trying to be diplomatic. Clearly I was too diplomatic. So, in the absence of good arguments for your assertions, I will leave it. Where is C. Gee's piece to be found?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Hezen: "
January 21st, 2011 3:28pm
JOHN ROOSEVELT
January 21st, 2011 8:01am
I was trying to be diplomatic. Clearly I was too diplomatic. So, in the absence of good arguments for your assertions, I will leave it. Where is C. Gee's piece to be found"

Isn't it funny how those who clearly hold opinions which guarantee war pretend to be such confirmed adherents of "diplomacy"?

Are you in denial? You seriously have not been reading the post re the article "The Left's sleep of reason?" Jeez, the fog of war, I guess...

Here is CGee's little ditti, in response to the nniny, Derek:

"Unless you can come up with a reason why the Zionists had a right to establish a state in "Palestine", a reason that doesn't rely on alleged divine intervention or ancient history, how does your statement about Israel's regrettable violence differ?"
No need to come up with a reason that fits your criterion of a reason (who appointed you as judge of what is an acceptable reason?) - or any reason at all. The state of Israel exists.
The morality of a state - war or domestic policy - has nothing to do with its “right” to have been established. Who confers this so-called right? Other states. They may establish a state by ceding sovereignty to it, openly acquiescing in its self-assertion, or forbearing to topple it.
If the Arabs believe the Palestinians are a nation which pre-existed modern Israel, then they must reclaim it all or in part for their state by toppling Israel, or they must accept what Israel cedes to them, or they may unilaterally declare themselves a state and hope that Israel acquiesces.
The Palestinians themselves are (at least a faction of the West Bank leadership is) contemplating the last option, and actually working to establish a working infrastructure for a state. Depending on whether they continue to “resist” Israel’s occupation (of Israel) and insist upon the return to Israel of millions of refugees, or whether by accepting borders of their state they also accept Israel, Israel either will not or will acquiesce. If it does: voila! - two-states, living side-by-side in peace, with negotiations finessed. If it does not: the war and those peace negotiations will continue as usual.
Is it not time for the Palestinianists here to be honest about what they want for Palestinian Arabs?
If you want a state, then support the unilateral declaration of Palestine: either as the first step of a “stages” strategy to reclaim the whole Mandate territory for Arabs, or as acceptance of a two-state solution. This is the way for fulfillment of that right to “self-determination” which has been the cornerstone of Arab claims to a state. It will be very interesting to see what self is determined by the Palestinians. I can hear already the cries that Palestine is too crowded, the land too poor, the borders too wiggly, and the foreign aid too stingy for the people to make a “viable” state.
If you want a good life for the Palestinians, then support Sari Nusseibeh who proposes in his new book that the Palestinians should accept second class (non-voting) status under Israeli sovereignty - compare with the legal alien residents living in the US, for example - but enjoy equal protection under the laws of democratic Israel. Peace, opportunity, prosperity, education, health... Individual self-determination rather than collective self-determination (which, after all, has not proved to be too glorious for the Arab nations created after WW1 or any of them).
If what you want is justice for Palestinians: a state in place of Israel, without the interim acceptance of a state in the West Bank (and Gaza); the Jews sent back to Europe or Brooklyn or wherever (Iran? Iraq? Egypt?); the redressing of the great wrong done unto the Arabs living within those Mandate boundaries, then say so. This is the Hamas position. Given your view of Israel as a criminal enterprise, I cannot see how a two-state solution could ever be just for the Palestinians. Why should the Palestinians accept bantustans when it is their country? And please say how this is to be done, and what policies you advocate for the nations of the world to bring this about. Let us see how these methods comport with the humanitarianism, compassion, simple decency, fair-mindedness and respect for international law that you project in your comments."

Malcolm, Australia

To John Roosevelt - I applaud you for your insightful critique and logic. Keep up the good work.